Plot counterplot, p.26
Plot/Counterplot, page 26
“I suppose not.” He took one more look, closed his eyes, then raced across the rooftop. “Cowabunga!”
* * *
Seamus McKay stepped out of his car, removed his sunglasses, and focused his binoculars.
Was that who he thought it was? What the hell was he doing up there?
* * *
Dylan leaped off the edge of the roof, plummeting through the mouth of the faux-volcano. Two seconds before impact, he thought, Shouldn’t my life be passing before my eyes? All I can feel is my heart thumping in my chest...
He hit the foam rubber with a thud. His back hurt like hell. But he was alive.
When he crawled out of the volcano, the handful of people who’d noticed his descent applauded. They apparently thought it was planned programming, the big finish. He just kept moving.
A ham fist slapped down on his shoulder.
“Nice try, Dylan. But I outsmart you, like always.” He held a gun inside his jacket. “Give me files.”
Dylan passed him the flash drive.
“Now we return to van.” He shoved Dylan forward. “Then headquarters. For review of operation. You used to getting reviews, right?” He pulled Dylan close and whispered into his ear. “This review I think you not like so much. Your story exciting. But climax was big flop.”
Chapter 55
After the debrief, the other members of the ops team were dismissed. Only Dylan and Mikala remained, flanked on the opposite side of the conference table by Xavier and Mr. X. Marco and Kalifa stood behind Dylan and Mikala, making sure they didn’t move.
“It was indeed an impressive operation,” Mr. X said. “You got inside the university, you abducted Scheimer, and you persuaded him to provide the information we needed. Without being detected.”
“Thanks,” Dylan said. “I suppose you’ll be giving me some kind of bonus and severance pay.”
She ignored him. “Which makes it all the more difficult to do what we now have to do.”
Dylan’s brows moved closer together. “What are you talking about?
He saw her fingers tense, squeezing air.
“I got what you wanted,” he reminded her.
“You tried to escape.”
“Wouldn’t you have done the same thing?” He paused. “Wouldn’t your IRA lover have done the same thing?
“Perhaps. But that’s not your only sin, is it?”
“We got the data you wanted.”
“Did we?”
“Yes. What’s the problem?”
Xavier pressed his thick hands against the table. “Problem is that you not keep agreement.”
“I did everything you asked. Everything and then some.”
“It is ‘then some’ that causes difficulty.”
“I don’t—”
All at once, Xavier’s lashed out, barely missing Dylan’s face.Mikala instinctively jumped away.
“Did you think we are idiots? Imbeciles?”
“I—got—your information.” He had to play dumb. “I did—everything—”
“Bullshit.” Xavier shoved Dylan backward. He was caught by Kalifa and Marco, who kept a tight grip on him. “Eight files on Scheimer’s laptop. You brought home seven.”
“You’re wrong. There were only seven.”
“No. We have all information we need about weapon, how to operate it. But targeting information is in eighth file.”
“You’re wrong.”
Xavier turned toMikala and put his right hand around her throat. Her face became pale. “You saw computer. How many files?”
“I—don’t remember.”
He shook her head so hard Dylan was afraid he might snap her neck. “How many files?”
She looked at Dylan, then back at Xavier.
This was why Dylan had recruited her. This was why he’d asked her to help him. He needed someone to drive the escape vehicle, true. But more importantly, he knew he couldn’t delete anything without the encryption expert knowing it.
“Answer!” Xavier barked. “Seven files? Or eight?”
“I—I’m not sure...”
He pulled out a gun and pointed it at her head. “You try to escape. That alone grounds to kill you. Then I kill your father. Slowly.” He pulled back the hammer. “Last chance to live. Tell me truth!”
“She doesn’t know,” Dylan said, cutting in. “I sent her away before the encryption was complete. All she ever saw were seven files, not yet completely downloaded.” He could see Xavier was not satisfied. If he was going to save Mikala, he would have to give more. “I’m the only one who ever knew there were eight.”
“What—were—you—thinking?” Xavier shouted. He shoved Mikala aside and came at Dylan, snarling like a wild beast.
“I was thinking I have a moral compass,” Dylan said, teeth clenched. “I was thinking I refuse to help you slaughter thousands of innocent people and turn the world upside down.”
Xavier shoved him in the chest with the flat of his hand. “You were thinking like stupid fool!”
Mr. X walked up to Dylan, glared at him a moment, then swiftly brought her leg up between his. The kick landed with a rippling intensity. Dylan clenched his fists, stifling the pain.
“No,” she said. “Not like a fool. He was thinking like an insufferable egotist who, despite all evidence to the contrary, still believed he was so much more clever than everyone else that he could trick his way out. Isn’t that right, Dylan?” She leaned into his face. “Do you think you’re the only person capable of foreseeing the future? I was making life-and-death plans when you were writing essays on Finnegan’s Wake!”
“I just want to see Leilani,” Dylan whispered. “Don’t you remember what that felt like? When you were willing to do anything—lie, cheat, or kill—to be with the person you loved?”
She slapped him. Her nails drew blood. “Did you really think we wouldn’t know you deleted the file, Dylan? When you delete anything from a hard drive, it isn’t really gone. It’s just moved to another location. And it remains there until the data space is overwritten. Do you know how hard it was for Felix to recover what you deleted? It took him about three minutes.”
“I—don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve played these stupid cat-and-mouse mind games with you long enough to know that you’re not stupid. Solipsistic, yes. Mired in fantasy, true. But not stupid.” An abrupt smile came to her face. “Of course. You knew we’d discover the deletion. You did it to distract us, to make us think we’d figured out your secret plan. To prevent us from finding something else.”
“You’re delusional,” Dylan said. “I didn’t have time to do anything else.”
“You did. And this is the last time I will ask. What else did you do? What are you trying to distract us from? What is it you don’t want us to see?”
“Nothing, damn you. I didn’t have time.”
“Apparently,” she said, “the maiming and near death of your so-called true love—the one you’re supposedly so desperate to see—was not enough to make you understand the situation. Apparently someone has to die.”
Xavier jerked his head back. “Do you remember what I said? What medic put in your head?”
Dylan tried to twist away but Marco and Kalifa held him fast.
Xavier reached into his pocket and withdrew what looked like a small detonator. “Burn.”
Dylan felt a fire ignite inside his brain. All at once, he lost control of his body. His legs turned to ribbons and he crashed to the ground. He fell forward, thrashing, as if the electrical circuitry in his brain had gone haywire. He tried to right himself, but his body would not respond. He fell sideways, drool spilling out of his mouth.
“Nanites are eating your brain,” Xavier explained. “Severing connections. Eroding neural network that transmits commands from brain to body. You are having brain damage, Dylan. Because you did not do what you said you would do. Because you could not follow your own plot.”
Dylan squirmed helplessly on the floor. His tongue spilled out of his mouth. His arms twisted backward at an unnatural angle. He urinated on himself.
“Stop it,”Mikala said. “You’ve punished him enough.”
“I have barely begun.” Xavier signaled two security guards in the rear. “Bring in prisoner.”
“Not my father,”Mikala said. “Please, God, don’t hurt my father.”
Dylan tried to speak, but the effort was impossibly hard. “Don’t... punish...her...”
Xavier glared at him. “Would you rather we killed your father?”
Dylan could not reply.
The wait was only a few seconds but it seemed like hours. Dylan could feel his heart pounding, threatening to rip through the pericardium and burst through his chest. He tried to twist his head around so he could see who was coming, but he couldn’t control his body. He could barely slither on the floor.
The two guards returned.
Dragging Commander Robert Taggart between them.
“Bah-bby,” Dylan said, sounding like an infant learning to speak. His brother wore his Navy uniform, but there were blood stains on it. His face was covered with purplish bruises, as if he had been beaten for a long time. His right eye was swollen shut.
“Dylan?” Bobby whispered. His eyes were unfocused. He was only marginally conscious. “What’s...happening?”
Fight it! Dylan told himself. But he couldn’t move a muscle. Couldn’t twitch an eyelid. His body was no longer his to command.
“Dylan...why are they doing this?”
“Try-ing....”
“What?”
Xavier jumped in. “Your brother is explaining that he tried—unsuccessfully—to be hero. And only thing he accomplished was to destroy his brother.”
“Couldn’t...let you kill....”
“So brother dies instead. Bitch had to pay for your sins with her body. Brother will pay with his life.”
Xavier kicked Robert in the back of his knees. His legs buckled. Xavier shoved him down to a kneeling position. A moment later, he pulled out his gun and pointed it to the back of Bobby’s head.
“Don’t!”Mikala screamed. “Please don’t!”
Dylan writhed on the floor. He wondered if the damage was progressive. Soon he might not be able to talk at all.
Xavier slid back the cartridge on the .45. “I am counting to ten. If you have not told me what else you did by time I reach ten, brother dies.” He looked at Dylan levelly. “One.”
Dylan scanned the room. “I...did...nothing...”
“Two.”
“Bah—by,” Dylan said, struggling with every syllable. “Big brother...didn’t mean to...hurt you....”
“I know. I don’t want a fight. I just want peace, Dylan.”
“You may get it. Permanent,” Xavier snarled. “Three!”
Dylan tried to scoot closer to Xavier, but he couldn’t control his muscles.
“Can’t you see he’s helpless!”Mikala shouted. “He can barely speak.”
“Four. He talk good if he want. Tell us what we want to know.”
Dylan glared at him but did not reply.
“Five.”
“I’m...telling you...there’s nothing...”
“Six. How much are you willing to lose, Dylan?” He removed the controller from his pocket. “Enjoy this.”
Xavier pushed the button and a bomb exploded in Dylan’s brain. He flipped backward. His back arched to an impossible degree. His neck muscles were so constricted he could barely breathe.
“Stop it!”Mikala screamed. “You’re killing him!”
“Maybe all Taggarts should die,” Xavier said. “Seven.”
Dylan squirmed sideways. He needed all the concentration he could muster to form a syllable. “I can’t...tell you...what doesn’t exist.”
Xavier adjusted his aim slightly and shot Bobby in the leg.
Lani screamed. “No!”
Bobby fell sideways, bracing himself with one arm. Xavier shoved him onto the floor, a limp sack of flesh, moaning like a wounded dog that wants to be put out of its misery.
Dylan and Bobby stared at one another, both heads lying on the floor.
“Have answer for me, Dylan?”
“I will never help you...if you kill...Bobby. Never!”
“Beg me not to hurt him. Beg me.”
Dylan did not beg.
“Eight.”
Lani fell to her knees. She wrapped her arms around Xavier. “Please. Don’t do this!”
Xavier shoved her away. “Nine.” He jerked Dylan’s limp body up by the collar. Dylan was unable to resist.
Xavier pressed the gun into Dylan’s hand.
“Beg me, Dylan. Beg me to stop this.”
Dylan pressed his lips together. “Never.”
“Ten.”
“No!”
Xavier closed his fist over Dylan’s hand, forcing him to pull the trigger. The gun fired. Blood splattered everywhere. Dylan shut his eyes. He heard his brother’s head smash against the floor, dull and wet.
“You...bastard,” Dylan gasped. “You...filthy...bastard.”
Xavier released him. He fell to the floor, eyes glazed over.
“You are broken, Dylan. I know that look. It cannot be playacted. You are broken and beaten and you will tell us what we want to know. Before we kill someone else!”
“I—I—”
“Going after your bitch. Now!”
Tears sprang to Dylan’s eyes. “I changed...the location. Weapon. It’s...under Kohala.” The life drained out of his voice.
Xavier let his head fall to the floor, wiping blood spatters from his face. He motioned to the two security guards who’d brought Bobby in. “Take him out of here. Then clean up this mess.” He looked down at Dylan. “Pathetic thing is—Felix would have detected that change. But this saves us much time.”
He addressed the others in the room. “Return to quarters. Tomorrow will be—” He paused.
Mr. X completed the thought. “Tomorrow will be the start of a new commitment. For everyone. We’ll meet in the conference room at nine to determine what to do next.” She looked down at Dylan, helpless, drooling on the floor. “We’ll send a wheelchair for you. I hope you’ll have a few ideas to share with us at the meeting.”
She crouched beside him. “You will never leave this organization, Dylan. Not alive. So you can live here happily and be well treated, or die. But you will never leave. Do you understand?”
“I...understand.”
“Good.” She rose. “See you all tomorrow morning.”
Everyone left the room, leaving Dylan alone, sprawled on the floor, unable to move.
He felt something wet rush against his face. Was he crying, without even knowing it? Had he wet himself again? It tasted dark and coppery on his tongue, sticky and—
And then he realized.
He was lapping up his brother’s blood. It flowed onto his face, into his eyes, into his mouth. All over him.
He had not anticipated every contingenCy. They had seen his plot twists coming. They were the ones who pulled off a surprise ending. They’d destroyed him, left him nothing but a pathetic puddle on the floor.
They’d beaten him.
Again.
The Consummation
“An unhappy childhood is the best early training for every writer.”
Ernest Hemingway
Chapter 56
Two Weeks Later
“I have another idea,” Dylan said, bracing himself against the conference table.
“’Bout time,” Xavier grunted. “G20 conference coming soon.”
“Hush,” Mr. X said. “Let’s hear what the man has to say.”
“The problem confronting us,” Dylan continued, “is that we know this weapon exists and what it can do. We know where it is. But we can’t aim it. We know how to input coordinates via an external computer, but we don’t have the schematics to build a key. A targeting device. Something to convert coordinates into the equations necessary to send the lightning bolt where we want it to go. So we have only one option.” He paused. “We steal the Navy’s Key.”
“I’ve read the files you stole, several times over,” Mr. X said. “The Navy’s targeting device—what they so dramatically call the Kronos Key—is kept in a vault at PACOM—the Pacific Command Headquarters. Probably the most tightly guarded facility this side of NORAD.”
“I know.”
“If you think you can break into PACOM like you did the university, you’re delusional. And if you think you can break into their vault, you’re flat-out insane.”
“I don’t think we can break into their vault. But we can get the Key.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I’ve never let that stop me before. Felix has done an amazing job of obtaining information about this top secret installation—but most of the news is not encouraging. First, PACOM is swarming with personnel. Over three hundred. Even at night there are more than a hundred people onsite at any given time. We cannot possibly elude detection in a place so heavily populated.”
“Exactly,” Xavier said. “Impossible.”
“Second. PACOM is protected by a high-tech sonar intruder-detection system. And third, the Key is kept in a bank-style walk-in steel vault protected by heat sensors, pressure-sensitive floor tiles, and a magnetic array that can only be deactivated by entering one of over a million possible combinations into an RGB keypad. Any attempt to tamper with it will release a glycol-based opaque fog which will instantly reduce visibility to zero. The vault can withstand over fourteen hours of drilling, even if you could get close to it, which you can’t.” He paused. “Those are the obstacles we must overcome to achieve our objective.”
“And that’s impossible,” Mr. X said. “You’d need massive weaponry and an army of a thousand soldiers.”
“No,” Dylan said. “But you need an ingenious plotline. Detailed research. And lots of character development. In short—you need a writer.”
* * *
The first day after Bobby died—the day after he shot Bobby—Dylan couldn’t move his body at all. They forced him into a wheelchair, but he couldn’t sit upright. He was a jellyfish on wheels, unable to speak clearly or even to nod his head. He could barely breathe. The medics debated whether the nanites would eventually disable his autonomic functions such as breathing. Many predicted he would die in his sleep.
